Selectmen hold off on Recreation Department changes

Members of the Recreation Committee met with selectmen on Monday to propose promoting Katelyn Wojnarowicz from her position of safe place administrator to director of the before- and after-school program, but the selectmen put the change on hold.

"The Recreation Committee approved this unanimously," Karen Goolsky, recreation chairman said. "Katelyn has been running the program for four years and pretty much does everything. She's helped with the community center locations and the clubhouse." Goolsky said she would like to see Wojnarowicz raised from a grade 5 to a grade 7, where her own position is on the town matrix.

"We would both report directly to the Board of Selectmen and the Recreation Committee. This is really just changing the title of Katelyn's position," Goolsky said.

He said a Mass. Municipal Association study on town positions was coming and he would prefer to keep things as they are until the study.

"It could be a scenario where instead of a one being a Level 5 and one being a Level 7, they could both be Level 6s," he said. "My concern is, are we creating a different department that's not under the recreation umbrella anymore."

Gooley suggested a bylaw change that would allow for two recreation directors, but the board remained cool to the idea.

"I think we're in a hold pattern. You can have the stuff prepared for when the consultant comes in to go over all our town positions," Becker said.

The board also met with Town Counsel Paul Cranston to discuss the advisability of meeting with Worcester and the other towns that are tied into Worcester's sewer program.

Cranston suggested that an agenda be put together before any meeting takes place. The town needs to find out what problems have been corrected since May 2007.

The three key items that need to be addressed are ownership and repairs to the system and the allotments that limit what towns can send into the Worcester system.

Repairs to the system done by the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority are then charged back to the town, Selectmen Douglas Briggs said. The town could accomplish the repairs much cheaper, he said.

The board also spoke with Cranston about the possibility of finishing up some minor work at the Glenwood School without hiring a wetlands consultant as the Department of Environmental Protection has stipulated.

"There is a $2,500 bond sitting in a town account right now," Cranston said."That's for New England Forests Products. If they're not interested in fixing the problem, I would just as soon take the money from the bond, do what we have to, give them the rest and call it a day. It's a day's work for a couple of guys."

The work, which deals with some land clearing by the Glenwood School, has until September 2009 to be completed.

Cranston said he would send a letter to the DEP, asking for some relief on the wetland specialist and suggested that work on the site be delayed until the town gets a reply.